Michigan State Accelerated Program

kiwispring · Mar 15, 2011

upnorth,

thanks for your reply!

do you know about how the clinicals are? do they start w/ the first wk of classes? where do people have their clinicals? i heard that people usually have to drive out for them and that's rough if it's early in the morning and far way.

did your friend feel like she had enough support/ resources to get through the program/ prepare her to become a nurse? ie, if there study groups, if the teachers were helpful, if there were any mentoring programs?

i was accepted into the state program and now i'm trying to find out more about it to see if it's where i wanna go. there's an information session for the accelerated program thursday i'm planning on going to...

UpNorthTC · Mar 16, 2011

upnorth,
thanks for your reply!
do you know about how the clinicals are? do they start w/ the first wk of classes? where do people have their clinicals? i heard that people usually have to drive out for them and that's rough if it's early in the morning and far way.
did your friend feel like she had enough support/ resources to get through the program/ prepare her to become a nurse? ie, if there study groups, if the teachers were helpful, if there were any mentoring programs?
i was accepted into the state program and now i'm trying to find out more about it to see if it's where i wanna go. there's an information session for the accelerated program Thursday i'm planning on going to...

I know she said she enjoyed her clinical but I don't remember any specifics. I don't think you'll have to drive any more than an hour to clinical. You do get to write down you preferences for clinical sites. There are two hospitals in Lansing. I have volunteered and both and I think they are both great hospitals. I'm currently volunteering at Sparrow in the ER and I'm impressed that the staff spends time explaining things to me, teaching me, and letting me observe...and I'm just a volunteer! As for the support I think they did study in groups. It seemed to me that the students did a lot together and was a close group.

You should definitely go the the informational session! I have been to two of them. You'll get more specifics on clinical and class schedules. Plus you get to see the nursing building at MSU.

bucktwo · Oct 10, 2013

Hello everyone,

I am the father of a now graduate of the MSU Accelerated Nursing Program. As my daughter applied for this program this web site was very helpful to her in chosing MSU, gauge GPA acceptance, costs, etc. As I am sure you guys are finding out this isn't easy. Because I found this site so helpful, I wanted to write up a quick summary of her experiences (and mine as I paid for it). I do this in hope that it will be useful for you in making your decision.

1) What grades she had to get accepted. My daughter applied with a degree from WMU. At WMU she had an overall grade point of 3.58 with a major in Applied Health, and Minor in Biology. Her core class (required class) grade point was 3.72, and she took those classes at WMU (not community college). She was accepted with these scores. While MSU doesn't provide you with a ranking of where you were accepted, as the students in her class compared GPA's, this seemed to fall in the middle, to upper middle of the scores accepted

2) Costs. (for the parents out there). The cost of this program is pretty heavy as all of you know. You need 48 hours to graduate, at a cost of $603/ credit hours. There are also hidden costs for test programs, health etc. Used books averaged about 700/ semester. While a lot of you think you can save costs by buying in alternative methods, let me assure you they have this fixed where you really can't. Overall this program cost is just under 50K. As I look back on it, you can view the cost very similar to the costs if she took the traditional course over 2 years. The advantage obviously is she could get in the work force sooner. Her cost break downs were as follows:

ONE TIME COSTS:

finger printing

Drug screening

basic life support

ACE test prep

RN Constellation

Blackberry

Stethoscope

Nursing Supplies

Total $1,600

Tuition

sem 1:$603 x 14hrs= $8442

sem 2: $603 x 12hrs= 7236

sem3: $603 x 10 (less 2000 for scholorship) = 4030

sem 4: 603 x 12 (less 2000 for schlarship) = 5236

total: $24944

Expenses / month

rent 600

utilities 150

Gas 100

spend 400

total: 1250 x 14 months= 17500

Books 700/semester x 4= 3600

GRAND TOTAL 47644 ( (call it 50,000)

HOSPITAL PLACEMENT:

She was placed at Sparrow, Beaumeont (Royal Oak), UofM Hospital, Jackson. This is misleading a bit, because most of those hopital were of her choice, and she did get her first choices on almost every semester. However, I will say that on average that the hospital choices she had did involve significant travel (about 1 hour). This compared to say Wayne State, there seems to be more travel comparitivly. This travel was expensive, in winter dangerous, and cut down on study time. The students did car pool quite a bit and this travel for her was never a problem, but as a parent I was concerned. There really is a stratagey on when to travel to distant hopitals. For example, everyone want to go to Sparrow becasue it's close, so the administration trys to rotate this assignment equaling out the travel for each student. One stratagey we used was to request the farther schools in the summer and Sparrow in the winter. This stratagy seemed to work out for her.

RESULT: She did graduate with a GPA of 3.67, and did pass the NCLX on her first try. Unofficially, 37 out of 40 students passed on the first try. However, many did not make it through the program. Out of 47 students 7 did not make it. However, while my daughter was never in this position, it did seem that the MSU administration did offer serveral a breaks or at least counsiling before dismissal fo from the program. The thought of shelling out 20k and have her dismissed in the middle of the program would keep me awake at nights. Overall, my daughter and I were both very satisified with MSU and her education. As in most cases with universities thesed days you have good professors and poor professors. At MSU this was no different. However, at 603/hr, I hated to see it when she had a prof that was a "clunker". Not many though. My daughter complained that sometimes the programed seemed to be disorganized, but this is subjective, and I really didn't notice it (obvioulsy she had the better vantage point)

Lastly, one of the other decisions we had was did she need to live in Lansing, or commute. We live in the Detroit metro area, about 1.5 hrs from Lansing. With this as our distance, my daugher could have commuted after her first semester. If I had to do it over, I would not have signed a one year lease for a condo. I would have had her sublease per semester, and evaluated on a semester basis whether she would commute. In her situation the last 3 semester, she only had on campus classes for two days a week. The rest of the days she was either off, or commuting to the hospitals, and she could have requested hospitals in the Detroit area. When you look at cost vs. travel time I think it would have saved a bunch of money with little inconvenience.

GOOD LUCK TO ALL OF YOU. Please do not use this information as gospal, but is very accurate to her experience. I hope it helps!